Hatsumomo's Sins
by The Sky Pirate Girl
Summary: "Drops of water on my face. Not mine. Never mine." Character study: Hatsumomo.


**Hatsumomo's Sins**

** Greed**

(_the lost purity of my mind, subsiding in some dark corner_)

I can still remember that sound. The racing rivers, the splashing of the cold water on my face.

I used to love the rain. For my unshed tears covered all the earth when it was raining.

**_Useless. Just a pretty face. Why did I not have a son?_**

I remember how those words were repeated behind my back. I remember how one day, I'd had enough.

I can still remember the walk from my village to Kyoto – my most precious possession intertwined in my hand, not a single thought of papa or mamma; I solely thought about what was forward, what was in front of my small, fading soul.

Walking, racing, moving slowly then. The colliding waves after the storm, the drops of wet on my face. Not mine. Never mine. I descended from the hill, noticing the view beneath. Kyoto.

(_gone forever, hiding from the new me_)

_"Mamma! Mamma! I saw two strange women!" I exclaim, running towards my parents, who are washing some __silks._

_My mother sigh__s as she look__sat it. "Return it__," __she sa__ys with a __tired sigh._

_"But why?" I ask childishly._

_"Because it belongs to the geishas. We're washing their __kimonos now. Return it."_

_I d__o not return this little __shawl; the geishas g__ave it to me, an odd sort of a mocking smile on their pretty faces._

_I want more of those kind of objects meant for me._

_(the rain falls, i walk in a silent corridor, crooning and searching for it)_

I knocked a door and a young and beautiful woman **_(more beautiful than anything I've seen) _**opened.

"I want to become a geisha." The words ripped themselves from my was silent for a while, gazing at me. I felt like she was scanning the deepest corners of my soul. I felt obliged to say more. "After I become a real geisha, I'll pay for my education!" I said in avoice bordering on hysteria. "I'll work hard! I'll wash the pots, if I have to!"

"If you are to become a geisha, then you clearly don't understand what one geisha does; washing the pots certainly isn't involved in it," she finally spoke. Her voice was soft and knowing.

_(but it keeps hiding, i keep going further and further away__; in the end I give up)_

** Pride**** & Sloth**

(_all that i've missed i see in the reflection _)

The best geisha in Kyoto. That was what I had become. I had surpassed the old sensei, I was blinded by my own beauty. People adored my "useless" face. The feeling I felt when I sent my parents a letter to tell them how far I had come, is indescribable.

_See, __Papa, I'm a geisha now._

I barely noticed the arrival of a little child, Chiyo.

But when I did, she unnerved me - she was so different and so similar to me in the same time.

(_passed me while i wasn't paying attention _)

Faster than a blink, more years passed, but when I realized what this fisherman's daughter had become, it was already too late.

Yes, I was blind.

_(save me, somebody take my hand and lead me )_

**L u s t**

(_… one breath for all…_)

I was full of hatred. I had just seen my mistake. I had been too indolent to see anything before but now I finally did. This girl didn't listen to my threads. And yet, she still wasn't much of a girl – she was a child. A child that seemed to be sent to diminish my life, but still – just a child.

Yet, when she crushed the only thing I held true passion for, I knew that my only remaining meaning in this world was to crush_ her._

(_… behind that wall…_)

Lust, perhaps that was all that I felt for this man. Never love, no, we – geishas – are forbidden to even name that emotion out loud.

This man perhaps felt something for me. His caresses were warm, as were his eyes every time he looked at me; he was just a thing I needed, though – nothing more.

This cold Hatsumomo couldn't, wasn't able to hold affections for anyone.

(_…so tender…_)

He was kissing my neck and I was running my fingers through his hair.

Then that girl opened the door and gasped. She told sensei about my relationship and sensei, on the other hand, forbade me to see Koichi ever again.

**_Forbidden._**

And then when I was finally alone, I felt something warm and salty on my cheeks, falling on my lips.

Yes, I was cruel, I might have beenmad even. But even the greatest villain could feel affection.

BecauseI remember: for a moment, when I heard sensei tell me that I would never be able to see Koichi again, I had been just one fragile woman, nothing more. One who found out what the meaning of love was.

And it already had been too late.

(_can you feel it?_)

** Wrath**** &****Envy**

(_… i have fallen, i have sunk low…_)

Ah, I'd never forget the passionate hate I felt towards this girl, right then. It was burning my insides, craving to be released upon her. I wanted to destroy her.

I tried to fulfill my threads, but I could not. I wasn't able to. Why fate had to be so bad to me? I despised Chiyo and she became more famous than me. She became Sayuri. I was merely annoyed by her, wanted to show her who commanded, and she ruined my life.

But no, I had lost everything that mattered to me; _she_ had become the best geisha in Kyoto, _she_ took Koichi away from me. I had nothing else to lose. Oh, but she had. She had a lot to lose. And I took it away from her, as she had done to me. With all my rage, I burned it. And there weren't even tears to stop this fire – _they_ had long last dried. And there wasn't rain falling on the earth.

I sank into the shadows of my previous glory, fading into the darkness. People never heard of me again, did they? Ah, there was only "as fierce as Hatsumomo, you are", or "as evil as Hatsumomo".

I was offered to become a prostitute, similarmanyother disgraced geishas. I refused. I wouldn't sink _that_ low.

Even then, still clutching to the only left reminded of my previous life, I never quite forgot the pride, the greed, the need for more. All my sins.

** Gluttony**

(…_can you feel my heart beating?…_)

I've always wanted people to know a great deal about me. For instance, I've always wanted them to know at least: _"it was raining when she died."_

I was old, no trace left from the once pretty, "useless" face. And I was alone. You know, when you're dying all your mistakes appear before your eyes, more vivid then ever.

Per chance, I thought, if I hadn't opposed the rain, if I had let it be - as a simple nature, life could be so much easier than it was. I could, perhaps, still have been with Koichi. Things could have been different.

"_Something old and red lay beside her head."_

No, I would have still been a geisha. I couldn't have been with Koichi.

I've always wanted to have more than I already did. Only when lost, I was able to quite understand it.

First, there was the greed to have it all; then there was the blinding pride in finally having it. Then there was the sloth and the lust **_(the lust being something more than just a crime),_** and the wrath and the envy. Slowly I recovered from all of those deadly sins.

_See, mamma? See, papa? I'm a wise woman now._

Though there was one more sin left.

"_Her eyes were opened, maybe she was expecting something more than just the death, a few more seconds of life or seeing Koichi's face for the last time. In the end she died the same way she was born – foolish. Though not as foolish as she was once, she was still hungry for more. _

"_And her regrets and her sins, they all didn't matter anymore. It was all for the splashing of the cold water on her face. __A drop of innocence; she heard the laughter of a silly little girl."_

That night, it rained.

– **_Fin –_**

* * *

**_A/N: _**_Wrote this when I was fourteen so don't judge too hard.  
_


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